Emirates NBD opens first Asia-Pacific branch in Singapore

Emirates NBD, the leading bank in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the largest banking group in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, launched its first branch in the Asia-Pacific region here on Thursday.

Started as a representative office in 2006, the Singapore branch is expected to play a pivotal role in facilitating and catalyzing trade and investment flows between Singapore and the Middle East.

A focus of the bank's Singapore branch will be on wealth management, targeting high net worth individuals from the Middle East who would like to base part of their offshore assets in Singapore. Conversely, the branch will promote Middle East and North Africa investments to Asian high net worth individuals who are currently under-weighted in their exposure in Middle East and North Africa.

"The bank's objective in opening a branch in the Asia-Pacific area is to position itself in a convenient hub to cover the world' s most dynamic economic region which includes the strong emerging markets of China, India, South East Asia and other East Asian countries," said Ahmed Humaid Al Tayer, Chairman of Emirates NBD, at the launch of the Singapore branch.

Speaking on the bank's development in the region, Brian Shegar, General Manager of the bank's Singapore branch and Head of Asia- Pacific region, said the bank is already considering expanding its network in Asia-Pacific.

Shegar told Xinhua that the bank will soon be working on opening a representative office in China's Beijing, where headquarters many Emirates NBD's potential customers, such as China's state-owned banks, oil companies and large construction firms.

Established in October 2007 from the merger of Emirates Bank and National Bank of Dubai, Emirates NBD is headquartered in Dubai and is currently the largest in terms of assets in the Middle East, reporting total assets of 77 billion U.S. dollars as of end of 2009.

The UAE is Singapore's second largest trading partner in the Middle East with total bilateral trade of 11.6 billion Singapore dollars (about 8.9 billion U.S. dollars).
(Source:xinhua)